Walden Media – The Screwtape Letters

So apparently Walden Media — the guys who made the Narnia movies, as well as City of Ember — have bought the rights to produce The Screwtape Letters into a motion picture.  This is both good and bad I think.  Good because I’m glad it’s going to be made into a movie… bad because I’m afraid they will try and make it a narrative with some sort of “plot” that’s not in the book.

The truth is that there is no need for make-up or special effects of any kind in this film.  There’s no need to show Screwtape, Wormwood, or ANY demons at all for that matter.  In fact, the If they want to do it correctly then they should focus on Wormwood’s “patient”… the focus of the book.

My idea for how this film should be done came to me years ago and has come up in my mind many times since.  If it were up to me the film would be void of any and all natural audio.  The only sound would be Screwtape & Wormwood’s voices reading their letters.  The visuals would be of the “patient”… going about his days, filmed in almost an “old home movie” dream like way… edges of the screen burned out, as if watching him through a hell anchored periscope.

This would, in my opinion, be such an eerie, and honestly disturbing, way of converting this great book into a motion picture.

The book makes you want to drop to your knees in fear and repentance numerous times.  It’s “voice” is overwhelming true and cuts anyone who reads it to the heart.  The film should do no less.  Yet, if it’s all make-up and screaming and CGI and loud “ominous” music, I’m afraid it will not only flop in the theaters but lose its bite and claws as a work.

So, my hope is that Walden Media reads this and takes note.